Summary

Michelle vividly remembered the inside of the family’s dirty and broken down station wagon. When she was four, the family lived in the car. It was her home along with her two-year-old twin brothers, Eddie and Freddie, and her little cousin, Mikey. The children had to fight for enough space to sleep each night. When her father parked near an orchard, they ate green apples for their meals. Michelle never knew how they wound up homeless or in Ohio. Her parents didn’t tell her much. Her mother was a mixture of black, Hispanic, Irish, Indian, Arabic and Italian. She was fluent in several languages.

The family spent about a year in the station wagon. They moved to a three-bedroom house in the ghetto, but they didn’t stay there - or anywhere - long. Wherever they moved, however, it...